An Arbok in Pokémon Emerald with 65535 HP thanks to the Pomeg glitch (picture by v0id19).

The Pomeg glitch (less often, the Pomeg Berry glitch) is an oversight regarding the Pomeg Berry's ability to decrease HP EVs. It allows a Pokémon to attain 'negative' health.

If the player uses a Pomeg Berry at a low amount of HP, the glitch may be abused to reduce the Pokémon's HP below zero. Its HP will then roll down from (2^16)-1 or 65535 HP due to hitpoints being a unsigned, two byte integer. In Emerald Version, this enormous health quantity will be displayed as '?35'.

There are many different tricks that the player can exploit with the Pomeg gltich for Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, LeafGreen, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum; including a major glitch technique called Glitzer Popping. Reducing a Pokémon's HP to negative values through use of a Pomeg Berry has been made impossible in all games from Pokémon Black and White onward.

Requirements

A Pokémon with at least 10 HP EVs at a level in which it would lose at least one HP with the Pomeg Berry (e.g. a level 100 Pokémon would lose 2 HP).

A Pokémon with a relatively low amount of HP.

Procedure

Reduce the Pokémon's HP to 1. This can be done by poisoning the Pokémon, or if a Pokémon with an odd amount of HP uses Curse twice.

Use the Pomeg Berry to obtain negative HP or 0 HP.

Exploits

Once a Pokémon attains this HP value, it may be exploited to abuse other oversights in the game.

For example, the Pokémon's health will become 0 when a healing item (Potion, Oran Berry, etc.) is used on it. This means that the player may have a team that is unable to battle, but will not white out as normal.

As previously mentioned, in order for a Pokémon to obtain ?35 or another 'negative HP' value in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, one may trade the Pokémon from Emerald.

Using healing items on a Pokémon with ?35 HP (or similar HP values) will not cause the Pokémon to faint. Instead, the Pokémon will be healed to full health.

However, it is still possible to cause Pokémon to faint outside of battle without whiting out in these games, as it is only healing items specifically that cannot be used. HP Ups can be used to gain the exact amount of HP required to raise a Pokémon's health to 0, for example. Rare Candies and evolution stones may be used similarly.

Battling with an Egg

When the player's last active Pokémon is fainted through use of a Pomeg Berry, Eggs may be forced to battle when they are in the first slot. In this case, the Pokémon inside the Egg is sent into battle. An Egg will count as a 'fainted Pokémon' if the Pokémon inside of the Egg faints in battle and the player wins.

When an Egg is sent into battle, the Pokémon inside the Egg will be displayed, with its palette changed to that of the red-and-beige Egg. The Pokémon inside of the Egg is capable of leveling up; hence, it is possible to hatch an Egg into a Pokémon in a secondary or final evolutionary stage. If a Nincada is evolved while in an Egg, an extra Egg will appear in the party after that battle if there is an open slot. This Egg will hatch into a Shedinja.

Battling Eggs may be poisoned, and can faint in the overworld as a result. The player will not white out, and the message that announces that the Poisoned Pokémon has fainted will not appear. If there is another non-fainted Pokémon in the player's party, the player will constantly encounter brief delays when travelling, as the game treats the Egg as though it has faints every 4 steps.

Fainted Eggs may be revived to full health using a Sacred Ash, but this will not cure status conditions (including Poison). When this occurs, the Egg's full HP value will be momentarily displayed.

Evolving an Egg

Pokémon that evolve through trading (Graveler, Machoke and Kadabra) will evolve if traded to another game while in an Egg. This will cause the amusing declaration that "Egg is evolving!" followed by the traditional evolution sequence with an Egg slowly evolving into a Golem, Machamp or Alakazam.

Glitzer Popping

Glitzer Popping is a glitch derivative of the 'sending out a ??????????' glitch that allows for data corruption; most notably the Pokémon in storage box 1 and 2 (from box 1 slot 1 to box 2 slot 23) which may be turned into Bad Eggs, Eggs (or less commonly after a 'double corruption'): a Pokémon which isn't interpreted as an Egg.

To activate Glitzer Popping, the player may view the summary of a Pokémon in the party after sending out the ??????????, scroll up to access Cancel and then scroll up again to access Pokémon beyond slot six beginning from Pokémon 255. Each time a Pokémon beyond slot 6 is selected (actually a region of unrelated data) the game will try to set the aforementioned bits; possibly corrupting data.

The name Glitzer Popping is assumed to have no relevance to the glitch in itself and was coined by speedrunner werster as he didn't want the glitch to have a name that (in his opinion) would be 'too generic'.

In this glitch the bits of non-existing Pokémon are set (specifically bit 0 at offset 0x13, bit 2 at offset 0x13, and bit 6 at offset 0x07 from the 'Miscellaneous' data substructure); allowing for the corruption of data such as stored Pokémon, Day Care data, Pokémon Contest data, map data, flag data, bag data, PC item data, Battle Frontier data as well as Secret Base item data.

Glitzer Popping has been used to obtain any Pokémon in the game and many glitch Pokémon. It is exploitable by keeping specific Pokémon with a certain personality value and specific attributes in the storage box. Examples include the in-game trade Horsea "Seasor" with the personality value $0000007F, or Seedot "Dots" with the personality value $00000084. These Pokémon may be corrupted into an Egg with a personality value of $4000007F or $40000084 with a species ID based on the Pokémon's Attack and HP EVs.

A successful corruption can take many attempts due to the address randomization mechanic known as DMA, in which the locations of addresses are randomized to one of 64 possible locations after actions such as opening the Pokémon menu or entering battle. In order to make the success rate more likely, a Pokémon to 'absorb' an unwanted corruption known as an corruption initiator may be placed next to the Pokémon the player wants to corrupt.

The Pomeg glitch may be used to send out a '??????????', or 'Decamark', into battle in Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald versions. (Doing this in R/S/FR/LG requires the Pokémon with ?35 HP to be traded from an Emerald version.)

The player's team must consist of at least three Pokémon:

A Pokémon with ?35 HP (in the first slot)

A fainted Pokémon or an Egg (the player may have as many as they like)

A Pokémon to switch into (in the last slot) - a "switch Pokémon".

Enter a battle, and switch from the Pokémon with ?35 HP into the Pokémon in the last slot. Escape from battle and get rid of the Pokémon in the last slot that was switched into. (It can be deposited in the PC, released, or put into the Day Care - but it must no longer be in the party.)

After using a healing item to faint the Pokémon with ?35 HP (or if the Pomeg Berry faints the Pokémon without giving it negative HP), entering a battle will cause the player to send out a '??????????'/'Decamark'.

Sprite glitch

If the player sends out a Pokémon with negative HP in battle and raises it to 0 HP using a healing item, its sprite and name/level/HP box will disappear. Afterwards, the use of one of the following moves will affect the user or the foe's sprite.

User's sprite

Absorb

Acid

Air Cutter

String Shot

Odor Sleuth

Sunny Day

Bite

Charge

Bone Club

Opponent's sprite

Charm (see Charm glitch)

Sunny Day

Screech

Charm glitch

After performing the steps which activate the sprite glitch, if the Pokémon gets hit by an attacking move and uses Charm, various graphical glitches may occur after the user or the foe performs a specific move.

Trade evolution

Pokémon that evolve through trading (Graveler, Machoke and Kadabra) will evolve if traded to another game while in an Egg. This will cause the amusing declaration that "Egg is evolving!" followed by the traditional evolution sequence with an Egg slowly evolving into a Golem, Machamp or Alakazam.

YOP glitch

The YOP glitch ("your opponent's Pokémon" glitch) is a glitch which occurs in Pokémon Emerald but seemingly not in English Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen; where the player will send out a copy of the opponent's Pokémon (known as a "YOP"), although it is apparently not an exact copy of the opponent as the type of this Pokémon may be different.

With all other Pokémon fainted, use the Pomeg Berry to faint a Pokémon or give it negative HP. Heal the Pokémon if it ends up with negative HP to give it 0 HP, and end up with all fainted Pokémon.

Enter a Trainer battle with all fainted Pokémon.

Use a Revive on a Pokémon and attempt to send out this Pokémon.

Select 'yes' on the "is about to use [x]" message.

Cancel out of the menu with B.

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen

Sending out a "óË {é Áî"

Reported by VaeporSage

Verified by VaeporSage

óË {é Áî (variable name) is an unexplained phenomenon similar to B óË Án with the index number of - (hex:019C). It appears to have an infinite entry animation similar to Conversion.

óË {é Áî will be 'sent out' by the player if they trade a Pokémon with an amount of HP between -32767 (32768) and -1 (65535) HP, acquired from the Pomeg glitch in another version to Pokémon FireRed or Pokémon LeafGreen.

If the player uses a healing item on this Pokémon to faint all Pokémon in the party, they can send out a óË {é Áî with the following steps.

Enter a Trainer battle with all fainted Pokémon.

Use a Revive on a Pokémon and attempt to send out this Pokémon.

Select 'yes' on the "is about to use [x]" message.

Cancel out of the menu with B.

Status screen glitch

The status screen glitch occurs only with Pokémon with exceedingly high HP traded from Pokémon Emerald to Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. If the player continually switches between the status of an excessive HP Pokémon and another Pokémon, it is possible to view a Pokémon with a glitchy sprite or cause the game to reset the game.

In Diamond, Pearl and Platinum Versions (and probably Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Versions, though this remains untested), the Pomeg glitch returns but is more difficult to exploit.

Healing items cannot be used on Pokémon with HP values below 0 however; it is still possible to underflow the Pokémon's HP and faint the Pokémon with a Rare Candy.

The mechanics of the Pomeg Berry were changed so that using the Pomeg Berry will revert the number of HP EVs to 100 if it is a value greater than 100, rather than always reducing the Pokémon's number of HP EVs by 10.

The Pomeg Berry will only lower a Pokémon's current HP if it has 3 or more HP. So significant HP EVs (at least 116 HP EVs at level 100, as this would result in a drop of 4 HP) are required to get negative HP. Unlike Emerald, the Pomeg Berry will have no effect if it would result in the Pokémon having exactly 0 HP.

Fainting a Pokémon

Fainting a Pokémon on the overworld is harder than it was in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Pokémon Emerald. The Pomeg Berry won't lower the player's current HP if using it would result in exactly 0 HP; so they would need to get negative HP first and then use a Rare Candy to raise its HP; hopefully to 0.

With the following expression one can work out how much HP on the Pokémon they need to faint it after using the Pomeg Berry and then the Rare Candy.

Remaining HP = (HP lost through use of a Pomeg Berry) - (HP gained through use of a Rare Candy after using a Pomeg Berry)

For example, consider a level 99 Azumarill with 244 HP EVs and 32 HP left that gains 4 HP upon leveling up with a Rare Candy. Using the Pomeg Berry will cause it to drop 36 HP resulting in -4 HP ("32 HP" with a full health bar), and the Rare Candy can be used to "raise" Azumarill's HP to 0.

When the player raises (not lowers) a Pokémon's HP to 0 and it results in all Pokémon being fainted they do not black out (this is the same behaviour as in Generation III).

If the player enters a Trainer battle with all fainted Pokémon such as one of the Trainers in the Battleground (in the Survival Area of the Battle Zone), then they may send out a shiny level 0 male "-----" with 0 HP which may have a long name filled with blank characters. In "What will (x) do?", "do?" may be invisible.

By opening the Pokémon menu, the player can see nothing in the first slot but the fainted Pokémon in the second slot. They can revive the second Pokémon and this will make the game prompt them to send it out on the next turn.